Historian’s Note: Life has not been kind to Mistress Maji and her team of adventurers lately. All they want is to get to the safety of the AFC Kingdom, but it seems that it wasn’t meant to be. Not right now, anyway... not with getting stuck in the World of Shoujo, getting attacked by nasty youma, and losing their teammate Akane to a plothole. Luckily, they’ve made friends with a magical girl named MoonPrincess. Can she help them to find Akane and then get to the AFC?

Weary from their last battle and worried about the missing Akane, our heroes had fallen into an awkward silence.

“Well... why don’t we introduce ourselves to our new friend?” Richard finally said, nodding to MoonPrincess.

“Alright, I’ll start,” said Mistress Maji, pointing first to herself and then to Bonehead, “I’m Mistress Maji, and this is my assistant, Bonehead. We killed the title character of the evil lemon Kagato’s Revenge. After that, we met the others...”

“I’m Richard Chilson, and this is Ken,” Richard continued, “We were Kagato’s prisoners. After Mistress Maji and Bonehead killed the perverted Kagato, they freed us. And after that, we met up with...”

“Amuro2nd, a knight of the AFC,” said Amuro, bowing, “Ranma and I were part of a team of AFC members that had been sent to rescue Richard. When Ranma and I got cut off from our teammates, we ended up finding Mistress Maji and her companions. Shortly before losing our teammates, though, we had run into someone who happened to be on his way to the AFC but had gotten lost...”

“That’s me, the Total Anime Nut,” Nut said sheepishly, “And the annoying white bat with me is Babbit.”

Babbit stuck out his tongue before continuing, “Next, Akane showed up, looking for Ranma. After a bunch of weird stuff happened to us that I’ll skip for now, we ended up getting trapped here, in the World of Shoujo. And we weren’t the only ones trying to find a way out of this place...”

“He’s talking about me,” Possum piped up, “I was on my way to join the AFC, when I somehow ended up here. Anyway, you know the rest. We were trying to find a way to leave this world and get to the AFC, when those youma attacked us and we lost Akane to a plothole. Then that Sailor Pluto person showed up, said a bunch of cryptic stuff, and disappeared.”

“Pleased to meet you all,” said MoonPrincess, “As for my story, I’m a magical girl who hops dimensions. One day I dimension-hopped to the AFC Kingdom, but as soon as I arrived I got run over by a crowd of girls chasing this old guy who had stolen their panties! When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a hospital bed. Ayeka was there looking at me with concern, and apologized for the rough welcome I had gotten. But the damage was pretty bad... physically I’m fine, but my powers aren’t at the level they used to be, and some of my memories are missing. I can’t remember which dimension I originally came from.”

“Aw...” the others said sympathetically, crowding around MoonPrincess and huggling her.

“Huh?” said MoonPrincess, sweatdropping.

“Sorry, standard #Aeka and #TenchiFF procedure,” said Nut, “Anyway, could you please tell us what you did next?”

“Well,” MoonPrincess continued, “I decided that the best way to get my magic back to its old level was to use my powers as much as possible. Ayeka suggested that I could hop dimensions to look for some of the missing AFC members. Now I’ve found you guys, and my powers are almost back to normal! Once I get all my powers back, I figure my missing memories will come back too.”

“So, when that Sailor Pluto person told you to think back to your journeys before reaching the AFC...” Ranma said slowly.

“...she meant that I need to get my memories back before I can take you to where Akane is,” MoonPrincess finished apologetically, “Akane must have been transported to whichever dimension I originally came from.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Ranma exclaimed, flailing his arms, “Try to remember! Akane might be in trouble! You HAVE to remember! Here, let me help, I’ll massage your brain!” He grabbed MoonPrincess and began frantically rubbing at her scalp.

“Hey, ow!” MoonPrincess shouted, trying to get away, “Cut that out, you’re messing up my hair!”

“Geez, he’s totally flipped!” Nut said. He grabbed Ranma and tried to pull him away from MoonPrincess, who was beginning to look like the Bride of Frankenstein from all the static electricity Ranma’s “brain massage” was causing.

“Mad with love!” Richard agreed, trying to help Nut to stop Ranma, “It’s killing his brain cells!”

Everyone crowded around Ranma and tried to pull him away from MoonPrincess. Everyone, that is, except for Possum and Babbit, because of their small size. Possum stood off to one side and watched, wishing he could be of help, while Babbit flew around Nut’s head and shouted instructions.

“Pull a little harder!” Babbit said, “No, that’s too much! You know what I think would help?”

“WHAT?” Nut hollered at him, “WHAT WOULD HELP?”

“Nothing,” Babbit whimpered, shrinking away.

“Random Simpsons Quotes!” everyone else said automatically.

Possum’s pink tail swished with anxiety as the chaos continued. If only it hadn’t been so long ago that he had swiped Akane’s Kawaii-Death-by-Chocolate dessert! He hadn’t told the others, but whenever he ate something sweet (preferably chocolate) it gave him an extra burst of speed and strength for a very short period of time. (I’d say he’s luckier than Popeye, wouldn’t you? ^_-) Hey, how else would you explain how he was able to escape Akane’s wrath after stealing her dessert?

By this time, MoonPrincess’ long hair was so full of static electricity that she looked like a huge blonde puffball, and still Ranma showed no signs of stopping. Stepping away from the hubbub so that he wouldn’t get trampled, Possum suddenly noticed four shiny balls sitting on the grass. Three were green, and the last one was red. He recognized them as the strange objects Amuro had acquired during the fight with the youma. Possum’s eyes sparkled hopefully. Maybe those round things were candy! Not as good as chocolate, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He scampered over to them, saying to himself, “Okay, mustn’t overdo it... just eat one for now, and save the rest to decorate a nice big chocolate cake later! Yum!” With that, he bit into the nearest one.

The first thought that went through Possum’s mind, as his sharp teeth nearly broke, was that the round object was probably too hard to be candy. The second thought that went through Possum’s mind, as the object let off sparks of energy that shocked his small form and sent him airborne, was that the object was definitely causing too much pain to be candy!

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!” Possum yelped as he sailed into the air, then plunged back down, landing on Ranma’s head and knocking the half-crazed martial artist to the ground.

“Oh dear,” Mistress Maji murmured, magically creating a Band-Aid and putting it onto the lump on Ranma’s head. “Are you okay?” she then asked Possum.

“Hey,” said Possum, sounding half-dazed and half-disappointed, “Where’s the cream filling?”

A large sweatdrop appeared over the group. It then came down with a mighty splash onto MoonPrincess. Oh well, at least it got rid of the static problem in her hair. ^_^

“Did you try to eat one of those things that Amuro found?” Bonehead asked, picking up one of the shiny balls from the ground, “Hey, wait a minute, this is materia!”

“What’s materia? I never heard of it!” said Babbit.

“Silly Babbit, materia are for kids!” said Nut, laughing at his own joke.

“Well, for video gamers, at any rate,” said Mistress Maji, “Materia are from Final Fantasy VII. Basically, they’re compressed power. Owning a certain kind of materia enables you to use a certain kind of power. For example, if you have Fire Materia, you can cast fire magic.”

“Wow, you really know your stuff!” said Amuro, impressed.

“Yeah, you must be the Madonna of the video game industry!” said Babbit. When everyone looked questioningly at him, he added, “You know, the Materia Girl.”

“Augh!” everyone else exclaimed, falling over from the bad pun.

“Hey guys, get up, I just got an idea!” Ken exclaimed, a light bulb appearing over his head. (Unfortunately, it took a few minutes before the others could hear the idea, due to a brief incident with Possum attempting to eat the light bulb.) “Materia lets you use magic, right?” Ken finally continued, “Then let’s all practice using the materia! The training will increase MoonPrincess’ power and help her to get her memory back, and as a bonus, we’ll have learned some magic to help deal with whatever we might have to face!”

“That’s a great idea!” said MoonPrincess.

“So, how do we start?” Ranma asked Mistress Maji.

“Um... beats me!” said Mistress Maji.

“Augh!” everyone exclaimed, falling over again.

“Sorry guys, they didn’t have a materia course when I went to Magician’s School,” Mistress Maji said sadly, “Everything I know about materia I learned from a video game. I don’t know enough to understand how real materia works.”

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” said a voice. Everyone turned around to see a short fellow wearing a dark blue robe and a pointed brown hat. His face was completely covered in shadow somehow, so that the only facial features visible were two glowing eyes.

“Hey, it’s one of those jawas from Star Wars!” said Richard.

“I’m not a jawa, I’m a black mage, like from Final Fantasy!” said the newcomer, “My name is Yui Kurokami, and I’ve made it my mission in life to teach people how to use materia to fight evil.”

“Cool, so you’ll help us?” asked Nut.

“You bet!” said Yui Kurokami. He clapped his hands, and several small white creatures with wings appeared out of nowhere. “These helpful assistants, my moogles, will set up what we need.”

“But how can they help if they don’t know anything about magic?” asked Bonehead.

“I said moogles, not muggles!” said Yui Kurokami, stamping his foot, “Anyway, don’t mind them. Once they’re done setting up, they’ll disappear. I don’t want to make your training too complicated by having a bunch of extras hanging around.”

Within a few minutes the moogles disappeared, and our heroes looked at the equipment they had left behind. “Sleeping bags?” said Amuro, baffled.

“That’s right,” the black mage replied, “You guys have got a lot of tough training ahead of you, so you’d better get a good night’s sleep first.”

“Alright, we’ll start tomorrow, then,” said Mistress Maji. She crawled into the sleeping bag that had her name on it, and everyone else crawled into the sleeping bags that had their names on them. There were even two tiny ones for Possum and Babbit.

“I’ll be up at the crack of dawn,” said Ranma, determined, “I’ll do whatever it takes to find Akane. I’m not afraid.”

“You will be,” Yui Kurokami said in perfect imitation of Yoda’s voice, “You will be.”

“See?” said Richard, “I told you he was a Star Wars character!”

“Quiet, you!” said Yui Kurokami.

Everyone sweatdropped before drifting off to sleep.